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Jan Böhmermann. Wikimedia. CC.As Merkel and Erdoğan face off,
following the so-called SchmähGedicht
(Slander Poem) in which the German comedian Jan Böhmermann publicly accused the
Turkish President of copulating with goats, trampling Kurds, and being a closet
homosexual, the German press has erupted in a frenzy of editorials and
opinion-pieces regarding the boundaries between satire and slander, freedom of
speech and freedom of art.

Yet isn’t the debate
about the so-called ‘Böhmermann affair’, a bit ridiculous, melodramatic even?
Rarely have such lofty beliefs been dusted off so readily and to such a
dramatic tune as with the Erdoğan versus Böhmermann crisis. Yet behind the dramatic
rhetoric in the German press lies a less noble and more xenophobic depiction of
Turkey and Turks in general as ‘Kulturfeinde’, staged as a diametrically opposed
culture-clash in which Germany can sleep easily in the knowledge it has
re-established its humanist credentials.

Even the otherwise
rather restrained Der Spiegel,
featured this week as its lead editorial (Leitartikel) the accusation that “Angela
Merkel thinks the Turkish President is more important than artistic freedom (Freiheit der Kunst)”. So easily it seems
we’ve transcended the debate on the freedom of speech and replaced it with the
freedom of art.

The SchmähGedicht (slander poem) was so
offensive, so out of context, and so foreign to Germany’s politically correct
sensibilities, that surely it must be ART-
or so one might imagine the thought process underlying such editorials. Yet
Böhmermann’s satire has more in common with the now widely supported
cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo than with the work of an artist as such.

It’s a poor plight
indeed, when the supposed European avant-garde consists of a group of people
who insult, not even in earnest, but as an ironically detached acting out of
the principles underlying free speech. Following Bertold Brecht, who poignantly
warned “pity the country that needs heroes”, in Europe today, where we rely on
our comedians to draw the boundaries of political criticism for us, we might as
well say “pity the country that needs satirists.” The question here, as to why
we feel compelled to export our principles into the realm of heroics, holds equally
true for the sudden re-discovered enthusiasm of satire as art. But is it really
satire, if it only mocks the power of others?

For it is hard to
shake the feeling that the real reason why the Böhmermann crisis has exceeded
all rational proportions, has more to do with German dissatisfaction with Merkel
than with Erdogan. Indeed, that Erdogan’s political style and rhetoric is that
of a bonafide bigot is commonly accepted knowledge in Germany, and is no longer
even remotely newsworthy. Instead, the deep discomfort at the ‘practical’ way
in which the refugee crisis is being ‘managed’ by the German political elite,
effectively turns these lofty debates on the supposed ‘freedom of the press’
and the ‘freedom of art’ into that much hot air, escapism even.

To flatter oneself
with obsessive re-interpreting of the SchmähGedicht
brings to mind the Brother Grimm’s enchanted mirror. In this case, one might
change it to: “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who in this land is the most
liberal of them all?” With the mirror’s response being: “Ah, truly there is no
one more liberal than you!” The fear of course being that in due time someone
else will become more liberal, or beautiful, than the gazer. Indeed, the German
fascination with the Böhmermann case reveals a deep narcissism that completely
drowns out the fact that the ‘poem’ was always intended to violate German hate
speech laws in the first place.

This is how we end up
with such meaningless statements as “the freedom of art is more far-reaching
than the freedom of the press” (Die
Freiheit der Kunst geht weiter als die Freiheit der Presse) or “Actually,
one should be proud to live in a country that allows Art to flourish so freely”
(Eigentlich sollte man stolz sein, in
einem land zu leben das der Freiheit der Kunst diesen Rang einräumt), both
courtesy of Der Spiegel’s ‘Leitartikel’.
With self-congratulatory rhetoric like this going around, it is little wonder
that the story has garnered only little international attention. The Guardian
referred to Erdogan’s attempt to sue the Comedian as exploiting an ‘obscure
German law’.

The backdrop to this
impassioned debate is of course the refugee crisis, and the inability to
formulate an appropriate response. In this light, it takes on a tragic-comic
effect when comedians such as Jon Stewart, for example, declare that they’re on
‘team civilization’ or that German bookshops now sell guides in Arabic and
German explaining that “German police are not corrupt” and that it’s “ok, to
feel overwhelmed when you enter a German shopping mall for the first time.” If
anything, such statements – uttered as they are in complete earnest- sound more
like actual satire than anything contained in Böhmermann’s so-called slander
poem.

So when the Turkish
prime minister calls the poem a ‘crime against humanity’ and Germans react in
outrage that this evokes the language of the Nuremberg trials, those statements
should not be taken at face value, but as another form of satire. An acting out
of political ideals to the backdrop of a long and extended death of those
principles in the first place. Should we therefore not elevate such rhetoric to
‘art’ as well? After all, the politico’s art is one that is always prone to unintended
self-satire.

And if one really
wants to bring German art into the debate, then one might as well compare the
entire episode to Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. After all, no one milked out the
tediously slow death of an ideal as did the German composer in his epic operas,
flirting for hours with the climactic theme of the drowning lovers. For in free
art, as in free press, the downward spiral is always more fascinating than the
death itself. As long as Merkel continues to defend Erdoğan’s
political paranoia, she will face the wrath of the German public. In this
satirical acting out of Turkish-German prejudices, the politicians are the true
comedians.

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